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Urban ecosystems are increasingly viewed as an important component within strategies for wildlife conservation but are shaped as much by natural systems as they are by social and political processes. At the garden scale, attitudes and preferences govern design and maintenance choices including...

Background: An important field of human-animal interactions is animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), which refers to research on human-animal interactions in order to promote or facilitate health or education in humans. Very few studies among the rich literature on AAIs seem to include aspects of...

This paper reports on the qualitative phase of a mixed methods study of occupational therapy in an equine environment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study's quantitative phase found that this intervention improved the occupational performance, social motivation, social...

Nature-based interventions have been proposed to promote physical and mental health and give stress reduction. Little attention has been given to the potential of zoos for human health and wellbeing. A disadvantaged group in Sweden regarding access to nature are individuals with disabilities who...

A new analysis of paleogenomic data from 278 ancient horses (Fages et al. Cellhttp://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.03.049) finds that this animal - crucially important to many ancient and contemporary human societies for subsistence, transportation, conflict, and more - was domesticated in at least...

The observation that animals may respond to the emotional states of conspecific or even heterospecific individuals is not new. After more than one century, the need to define what exactly non-human animals are able to feel and—from this starting point—rethink the legal status and place of animals...

Domestication shaped wolves into dogs and transformed both their behavior and their anatomy. Here we show that, in only 33,000 y, domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans. Based on dissections of dog and wolf heads, we show that...

BACKGROUND: Dementia represents a mental and economic burden for both patients and their caregivers. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the effectiveness of animal assisted therapy (AAT) with special focus on canis therapy among people with dementia, specifically Alzheimer's disease....

Veterans experience mental health conditions at a disproportionate rate compared to their civilian counterparts, and approximately 60% of older veterans who receive their care through the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) do not meet physical activity (PA) recommendations. We...

Farm animals populate the next two sections: the cows and pigs reared within the built-up area, and the cattle and sheep driven into the heart of the city to be slaughtered. A recurrent theme of the book is the way in which urban growth actually increased interactions between animals and humans...

This exploratory study describes the development of a classification system for dogs' attachment security to caregivers that adheres closely to Ainsworth's seminal methodology. Fifty-nine adult dogs and caregivers participated in a mildly threatening laboratory encounter with a stranger (TS) and...

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a complementary intervention of therapy that has shown positive results in the treatment of various pathologies. This study assesses the viability of the implementation and the effectiveness of an AAT program in patients diagnosed with substance abuse disorder and...

BACKGROUND: Dementia is a chronic condition which progressively affects memory and other cognitive functions, social behaviour, and ability to carry out daily activities. To date, no treatment is clearly effective in preventing progression of the disease, and most treatments are symptomatic,...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major concern for military veterans in the United States and current research on women’s experiences in the military and the effects of their post-military PTSD are limited. Currently, there are a variety of evidence-based and alternative...